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Updated: June 7, 2025
No carioles could be procured in that wild region, but at a poor fishing-village on the coast they got two of the country carts. These are small rough machines, with a seat on wooden springs. They can hold only two persons, and are light and serviceable, well suited to the rough roads. Fred and Sam led the way; Grant and the steward followed.
The younger puppies were packed in the carioles around our travellers, and some of the more obstinate older ones were led by ropes fastened to their collars and tied to the sleds, while the great majority, coaxed by little pieces of meat occasionally dropped on the ice, kept well up to the trains.
The stations usually stand alone, in some isolated spot on the wayside, and consist of a little log or frame tavern, a long shambling stable, innumerable odds and ends of cribs, store-houses, and outbuildings, forming a kind of court or stable-yard; a rickety medley of old carts and carioles lying about basking in the sun; a number of old white-headed men smoking their pipes, and leathery-faced women on household duties intent, with a score or so of little cotton-headed children running about over the manure pile in the neighborhood of the barn, to keep the pigs company; here and there a strapping lout of a boy swinging on a gate and whistling for his own amusement; while cows, sheep, goats, chickens, and other domestic animals and birds browse, nibble, and peck all over the yard in such a lazy and rural manner as would delight an artist.
After a hasty lunch they had coaxed Mr and Mrs Ross to let them drive them over, and so a couple of carioles were soon attached to their different trains. Plenty of robes were put in, and now here they all were, and, as always, were most cordially welcomed.
Well, and how did they get on? Snow not too soft, I hope? Encampment comfortable? But no fear of that of course, with Peter Macnab as leader. No capsizes?" "None," said I, seizing advantage of a slight pause; "everything went as well as possible, and the carioles went admirably especially Jessie's."
But they assumed such a hostile attitude, that he deemed it unadvisable to attempt opening any communication with them, and retreated as speedily as he could. The observations we obtained here shewed that the chronometers had varied their rates a little in consequence of the jolting of the carioles, but their errors and rates were ascertained previous to our departure.
While the Indian women were thus busily engaged in fitting out the warm apparel necessary for travelling in such a cold land the boys were making themselves useful, under Mr Ross's guidance, in overhauling carioles, dog-sleds, harness, robes, snowshoes, and other things essential for the trip on the morrow.
On these occasions the sleighs, or carioles, are drawn, not as otherwise customary, by the fast trotting little horses of the country, but by expert natives whose mode of transport is as follows: A strong rope is fastened to the extremity of the shafts, and into this the French Canadian, buried to the chin in his blanket coat, and provided with a long pole terminating in an iron hook, harnesses himself, by first drawing the loop of the cord over the back of his neck, and then passing it under his arms In this manner does he traverse the floating ice, stepping from mass to mass with a rapidity that affords no time for the detached fragment to sink under the weight with which it is temporarily laden As the iron-shod runners obey the slightest impulsion, the draught is light; and the only fatigue encountered is in the act of bringing the detached bodies together.
Far away on the frozen river were saplings stuck up to show where the ice was safe a long line of poles from shore to shore and carioles were hurrying across to the village. Being market-day, the place was alive with the cheerful commerce of the habitant. The bell of the parish church was ringing. The sound of it came up distantly and peacefully.
Pursuing our route along the river, we reached at an early hour the upper extremity of the "Grand Rapid," where the ice was so rough that the carioles and sledges had to be conveyed across a point of land. Soon after noon we left the river, inclining N.E., and directed our course N.W., until we reached Long Lake, and encamped at its northern extremity, having come twenty-three miles.
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